BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE

This live-action remake of a well-beloved anime of the same name comes across better on the small screen than it did in the cinemas . . .

For starters those silly looking globules of GGI blood look slightly better, but the movie is still let down by some cheap CGI, especially of a cheesy-looking gargoyle that makes one long for the gory days of Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion creatures! The DVD transfer is pretty decent though and makes the production designs and moody photography look better than it has any right being. The DVD transfer unfortunately cannot help the acting and the scene in which Blood cries desolately after killing her mother is more likely to illicit chuckles rather than anything else.

In the original movie a Wednesday Addams look-alike in a Japanese school girl uniform slices demons with a samurai sword in an American air force base during the Vietnam War. This movie more or less keeps the setting, but pads the original film's running time by adding some out-of-place Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-style action sequences. They are decently staged, but still superfluous: one such sequence is a flashback in which we know the lead character is going to die beforehand, so why draw things out?

By the way, is it just us or is there a weird lesbian undertone between the two female co-stars?

THE DISC: Some very brief featurettes consisting mostly of talking heads waxing lyrical about the director or this or that co-star. One featurette does give one an appreciation of how tiring stunt and wire work on such a production can be.

RECOMMENDATION: Blood - The Last Vampire could have been worse, but rather check out the original anime if you haven't already done so. It boasts some cool animation.